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Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

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Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#141

Post by gruez »

bobsmooth wrote: post #99
fn-mote wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it should be provided by the state and paid for with taxes / annual registration fees The free market is required to accurately price the risk for each driver. A 45 year old female driver with no infractions is much less risk than an 18 year old male with a DUI, so the former should pay less in premiums. The current system is doing that. I do not see how a state-provided solution would come up with "accurate" prici…

>The free market is required to accurately price the risk for each driver. That same market means some will decide that not having insurance is a better deal. Tying insurance to something like drivers licences increases the cost of not having insurance. >I do not see how a state-provided solution would come up with "accurate" pricing for individuals. Can the state not hire actuaries?

>Can the state not hire actuaries?

yes, but a sibling commenter has weighed in how it turns out: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29719762

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#142

Post by dragonwriter »

explodingman wrote: post #134
dragonwriter wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The judge should hit the other party. What judge? The whole scenario is around a party who was not willing to go to court. There's no judge involved.

The appropriate course is to sue the other driver directly and ignore the insurance company. A person cannot ignore a court summons, not even in Texas. The judge will know that the other driver's insurance will ultimately pay, so he can punish the insurance company for its intransigence by putting a heavy financial penalty onto the other driver.

> The appropriate course is to sue the other driver directly and ignore the insurance company.

Yes, that's how you formally sue in an accident. It's not the hack you think it is, though, the insurance company defends the lawsuit, that's part of the insurance agreement.

It's also specifically what OP was unwilling to do which resulted in the insurance company not paying, and why any “the judge should...” is missing the point. If there was even the slightest expectation there would be a judge, the insurance company would have likely paid without batting an eye.

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#143

Post by KennyBlanken »

mb7733 wrote: post #103
romwell wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hot take: if it's something that's universally a good thing that should be required of every driver, it should be provided by the state and paid for with taxes / annual registration fees. Otherwise, it's just an income-generating scheme for private parties. Oh, and fun fact: the liability insurance isn't required to pay up anything unless the covered driver loses in court . They don't have to follow that the police r…

British Columbia forces you to buy liability insurance from the provincial government and it's awful. The premium calculations are illogical and inefficient. Bad drivers are subsidized by good ones, the rates are among the highest in the country and the govt manages to lose money on it. My experience in other provinces with private insurance companies was much better.

That's likely not because of government inefficiencies, but because a small segment of the population is responsible for the vast majority of costs. Mostly drunk drivers, to be frank - but also that certain lovely category of individual who feels that societal rules don't apply to them.

Private insurers can say "fuck no, we're not insuring you, you've got 2 DUIs, 6 speeding tickets, and numerous equipment violations" or make the cost of that insurance absurdly expensive, pricing them out.

If the government is providing the insurance, they likely have to say "yes" to everyone. Waiving the requirement to insure everyone is well and good until someone looks at the data and sees that your completely non-discriminatory rules are effectively discriminating against certain classes of people.

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#144

Post by joe_the_user »

lostcolony wrote: post #109
dragonwriter wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...I got zero ($0.00, zlich, nada) from the other driver's liability insurance. Well, yeah, you didn't legally establish any liability, or even, apparently, make even the suggestion of the intent to do so. Insurance companies, being for-profit entities, aren't in the business of giving out gifts. > Now, if I had comprehensive coverage, they'd be facing my insurance company Yes, dealing with other driver's insurance…

The police report, however, did. Throwing ones hands up to say "well, of -course- the company is going to avoid paying anything out unless taken to a court of law" is to abdicate corporations of all responsibility other than profit making. Just because a person can't afford justice doesn't mean we should accept injustice.

The idiot of your whole thread is that while you're talking about how "insurance is a scam". Well, you might not like taking the complicated process needed to get stuff from an insurance company, sure. But if you were instead just dealing with an individual, it's obvious your situation would be not better but completely impossible.

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#145

Post by sjg007 »

TameAntelope wrote: post #102
romwell wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hot take: if it's something that's universally a good thing that should be required of every driver, it should be provided by the state and paid for with taxes / annual registration fees. Otherwise, it's just an income-generating scheme for private parties. Oh, and fun fact: the liability insurance isn't required to pay up anything unless the covered driver loses in court . They don't have to follow that the police r…

Insurance is one of those areas of knowledge where, unless you're an expert, you can easily be told true statements that are highly misleading. Overlap that with the law, and you get a fantastic tangle of misleading information that can cripple your ability to make good choices. It's probably true that, technically, liability insurance is only available once the driver loses in court, but that means very different th…

Another area like this is special education in public schools. Meaning the IDEA etc...

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#146

Post by gruez »

d136o wrote: post #136
dragonwriter wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The 'scam' seems to be insofar as wealthy and powerful entities can exploit the functional inability of those less wealthy and powerful to meet them on even terms in the legal system. Even without insurance or greater wealth, a party from whom you believe a liability should exist who has no interest in paying could have done the same thing here. If you aren't willing to sue over a disputed liability, it might as we…

> If you aren't willing to sue over a disputed liability, it might as well not exist. I think this might be at the heart of it. The article (about how hard actuarial math is) and the insurance buyers make the mistake of thinking that all that matters is downside in case of event X with particular probability P. However, instead you have to think about chances of X AND chances of being able to navigate a system that i…

>The article (about how hard actuarial math is) and the insurance buyers make the mistake of thinking that all that matters is downside in case of event X with particular probability P. However, instead you have to think about chances of X AND chances of being able to navigate a system that is outright adversarial to parties that are not the insurance companies.

Are people going through and calculating the expected utility of purchasing insurance, and that calculation is being thrown off by counterparty risk, leading them to buy insurance they wouldn't have bought? I doubt it.

>The “house” always wins…

is there an expectation otherwise? You buy insurance to protect against risks, not because you think it's a positive expected value investment.

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#148

Post by Moodles »

The red/blue urn question in the article isn't super duper hard right? It's at a level where it's a very hard question (but still doable) for a 16 year old high schooler I think?

b = number of blue balls in second urn.

P(both same color) = P(both blue) + P(both red) = P(first urn red) * P(second urn red) + P(first urn blue) * P(second urn blue)

0.44 = 4/10 * 16/(16+b) + 6/10 * b/(16+b)

Multiply both sides by 10(16+b) and simplify:

b = 4

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#149

Post by d136o »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #125
derbOac wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to sound snarky, but this was my reaction as well. It's also the very nature of insurance: you get insurance to cover the rare but costly problems that arise. If they're not rare, you don't need insurance because you address the problems another way.

Yeah, that's exactly it. I know I've certainly spent spare brain cycles considering it, and there seem to be a number of startups trying to create cheaper title insurance, but it's not clear to me how to really solve the issue. Basically it's a human behavior and record keeping problem. You have to have perfect records, and you hope some estranged cousin doesn't magically popup with a deed someday claiming to own you…

When we bought our house, after our down payment and on our way to closing I asked a question to the escrow/title insurance person:

* the disclosures show two slightly different figures for the dimensions of the lot, which one is it? (County mapped shows Width W and another owner provided map showed W-1ft or something like that)

Instead of doing anything to try to figure it out, this title insurance company (also doing escrow) lowered the tier of title insurance they were willing to provide LOL

Because this was a material change, once they saw we wouldn’t go through with the transaction without the best coverage they changed their minds about and said that they’d title insure at the highest level… but only once we pushed them on it…

Nobody did any more work to settle the question than us, who went to the house and measured to determine which dimension was right…

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#150

Post by sjg007 »

d136o wrote: post #120
gurchik wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are there insurance products that people are really satisfied with and trust will pay out in case of event X? I've always been happy with renter's insurance and have paid it since my first apartment in college. I pay $100/yr for a 50k limit policy. Unlike car insurance I am not required to have this, but I've always considered it to be worth it. I also pay for pet insurance. Again, not required to have it but when…

Thank you for the positive example! Have you had to get anything paid out from renters insurance? Pet insurance seems like a great business to be in… is there anything that requires you to actually have pet insurance? Would it cover costs from your pet hurting someone else? Or is it more to cover pet health costs? Really curious to know the ways it’s similar or not to US human health insurance hah

It is for unexpected pet health care costs. Your pet attacking someone would be covered under homeowners or a personal liability umbrella.
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